Lyndon Antcliff

I have two Facebook accounts, one is personal and the other is business. I know you can set up groups to keep things separate, but I neither trust Facebook or myself to set things up in such a way that I never have to worry about the two groups clashing.

Much simpler to set up two accounts.

My business feed is mostly about ranking websites in Google and using social media in a profitable way. Although you still get the, “bought a new at today, matches my hat”, type posts on the business side, it’s mostly good info.

But I just wrote a note to my personal feed about hyper mediation making people beige. Which is something you are more likely to find in Media Communications degree essay I know, and I’m sure it leaves some of my Facebook F&F wondering WTF.

The point is, you don’t get to see people’s lives, you only see the hyper mediated version that has any sharper corners sanded down by a high voltage Bosch power tool. You tend not to get any juicy bits.

Hence the beige.

Also, I am noticing a reduction in Facebook action from “normal” people. By normal I mean those that do not have to be chained to the altar of QWERTY 16 hours a day. The trend may be different with the generation who are growing up with http grafted on to their sub-consciousness who in a few years will have iPhone screens surgically grafted into the palms of their hands.

And if we try to go towards the more fruity parts of Facecbook and social media, we soon find ourselves neck deep in a foul smelling brown fluid, that has a strange viscous quality.

Maybe it’s best to stick with the beige.

But I think, it’s more important to unhook from the stream of hyper mediated human consciousness and let the grass grow a little.

Recently I nuked all of the people I follow on Twitter. Which is 99.9% business and strangely enough it’s led me to be more connected and communicating more with people. I suppose it has forced people to email, which persuades people to be more detailed than the regular 140 chars.

Honestly, it is fascinating stuff picking at the threads. You do have to step back though to see some of the detail.

Good Writing.

Really good writing.

Is not about the writing at all, but how the reader perceives it.

Good writing does its thing without the reader knowing. It leaves the mind of the reader with a flavour, a taste of something. This is why information is best imparted using a story as a vehicle. Although it’s tricky to communicate the instructions of a Cannon EOS 7d using allegory.

If you are in the communication business it is beneficial to you to learn how to be a story teller. Not the Hemmingway way of story telling, which is more about the author trying to get laid (don’t most men write for this end?) but a story telling that is simple, basic and contextual to the life of the reader.

We write to be read, even if it is only the author which reads.

Writing is simply communication and all communication is underlaid with persuasion. Of course some communication is more heavy with persuasive techniques than others.

“Washes whiter than white”
“I love you, I really do.”

And so on.

Social media communication is no different, as we Tweet and Facebook we are tapping into the same lizard brain that has been with us for thousands of years. But most are not conscious of that, which is where the marketer can work a little magic.

And make a little money.